PwC Isle of Man Transparency Report 2020

Message from leadership

I’m delighted to introduce our 2020 Transparency Report, providing information about how the firm is governed and our systems of quality control over audits. While PwC is a multidisciplinary firm, this report is primarily focused on our audit practice and related services. The audit profession continues to be under significant public scrutiny and challenge. We understand the concerns and are committed to changes that will improve audit quality. 

In the Isle of Man we are committed to providing a quality industry-focussed service to a wide range of clients, with a service offering of audit & assurance, tax, advisory and actuarial services. We aim to deliver more value than our clients expect and form long-term relationships.

Our purpose

At PwC, our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. We’re a network of firms in 157 countries with more than 276,000 people who are committed to delivering quality in assurance, advisory and tax services. We are committed to drive a strong culture of quality and excellence that is core to our purpose. 

Operating from our Douglas office, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC (“PwC Isle of Man” or “our firm”) is a locally owned and controlled organisation  of more than 100 staff with 13 Partners/Directors.

Trust lies at the heart of everything we do at PwC. It’s fundamental to fulfilling our firm’s purpose. One of the ways we build trust is by being transparent. As auditors, we’re also acutely aware of another trust driver: the quality of our external audits. That’s why we’ve introduced our inaugural Transparency Report showing how we maintain quality in our audit work. The report describes our policies, systems and processes for ensuring quality and the way we foster a culture of quality at every level of the firm. It details the Market Traded Companies we performed audits for and the total revenue from our audit and non-audit work.

Investing in innovation & technology

We have taken further steps to align our business to support this focus on audit quality. We continuously invest in innovation and new technology to support our services across the firm, to meet the changing audit challenges in a digital age and to enhance the quality of our audit services. 

PwC has invested in a global ‘New world. New skills.’ programme and our upskilling journey has started. Over the next few years, we will be making a major investment in building the ‘digital fitness’ of our people as we look to uplift digital capability to keep pace with client demands, optimise operations and continue to attract top talent.

Technology is of increasing importance to the audit profession and to that end, we have introduced a ‘digital accelerators’ programme. Our ‘digital accelerators’ have received in-depth training on selected tools and methodologies, such as Alteryx and Power BI. The ‘digital accelerators’ are our local champions leading the way in implementing these tools on our engagements, developing innovations and new ways of working to be more efficient for our clients. A two-day course is being delivered to all our partners and staff across the Isle of Man firm upskilling the practice and encouraging our people to challenge what we do in our day-to-day work, and how it could be done better with these new tools.